Suresh M, Menne S. Application of the woodchuck animal model for the treatment of hepatitis B virus-induced liver cancer. World J Gastrointest Oncol 2021; 13(6): 509-535 [PMID: 34163570 DOI: 10.4251/wjgo.v13.i6.509]
Corresponding Author of This Article
Stephan Menne, PhD, Associate Professor, Department of Microbiology and Immunology, Georgetown University Medical Center, 3rd Floor, Medical-Dental Building, 3900 Reservoir Road, Washington, DC 20057, United States. stephan.menne@georgetown.edu
Research Domain of This Article
Gastroenterology & Hepatology
Article-Type of This Article
Review
Open-Access Policy of This Article
This article is an open-access article which was selected by an in-house editor and fully peer-reviewed by external reviewers. It is distributed in accordance with the Creative Commons Attribution Non Commercial (CC BY-NC 4.0) license, which permits others to distribute, remix, adapt, build upon this work non-commercially, and license their derivative works on different terms, provided the original work is properly cited and the use is non-commercial. See: http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/
World J Gastrointest Oncol. Jun 15, 2021; 13(6): 509-535 Published online Jun 15, 2021. doi: 10.4251/wjgo.v13.i6.509
Application of the woodchuck animal model for the treatment of hepatitis B virus-induced liver cancer
Manasa Suresh, Stephan Menne
Manasa Suresh, Stephan Menne, Department of Microbiology and Immunology, Georgetown University Medical Center, Washington, DC 20057, United States
Author contributions: Suresh M and Menne S wrote the manuscript. All authors have read and approve the final manuscript.
Conflict-of-interest statement: Manasa Suresh declares no conflict of interest for this article. Stephan Menne serves occasionally as a paid scientific consultant to Northeastern Wildlife, Inc. (Harris, ID), the only commercial source for woodchucks within the United States.
Open-Access: This article is an open-access article that was selected by an in-house editor and fully peer-reviewed by external reviewers. It is distributed in accordance with the Creative Commons Attribution NonCommercial (CC BY-NC 4.0) license, which permits others to distribute, remix, adapt, build upon this work non-commercially, and license their derivative works on different terms, provided the original work is properly cited and the use is non-commercial. See: http://creativecommons.org/Licenses/by-nc/4.0/
Corresponding author: Stephan Menne, PhD, Associate Professor, Department of Microbiology and Immunology, Georgetown University Medical Center, 3rd Floor, Medical-Dental Building, 3900 Reservoir Road, Washington, DC 20057, United States. stephan.menne@georgetown.edu
Received: February 21, 2021 Peer-review started: February 21, 2021 First decision: April 19, 2021 Revised: May 2, 2021 Accepted: May 15, 2021 Article in press: May 15, 2021 Published online: June 15, 2021
Core Tip
Core Tip: Hepatitis B virus-induced liver tumors are hard to treat with currently available interventions and the prognosis of hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC) in patients remains still poor. Immunocompetent woodchucks are a useful animal model for human HCC, because multiple tumors at different stages develop spontaneously and secondary to viral infection. This similarity to human hepatocarcinogenesis and the animal’s vascular architecture allowing catheterization with human-sized products have increased the preclinical use of this model to improve existing imaging (ultrasound, magnetic resonance imaging, and positron-emission tomography) and ablation techniques (embolization and radiotherapy) and to evaluate interventions (chemo, gene, and immune therapy) intended to treat human HCC.
